Describe the problem
Many journey planning apps integrate DRT services in their planning so that DRT trip options show up in the journey planning results besides fixed route services. Quite often a link is offered based on the booking_url from booking_rules.txt that directs the user to the website of the DRT service. The user could then book the service he is interested in.
To make it more convenient for the user most DRT booking systems offer the usage of url parameters. Then it's possible to pass along basic infos regarding the desired DRT trip like starting point and time. The booking webseite can then already take the user to an offer for his trip request. No need to type in again start point, time etc.
Unfortunately each DRT booking system has defined it's own set of url parameters. To avoid that journey planning apps need to know which set of url parameters each DRT booking system supports, it might be a better solution to include an uri deeplink template in the GTFS data as e.g. deeplink_url_template.
Use cases
Make it possible for journey planning apps to generate deeplinks for DRT trips based on an uri template provided with the GTFS data.
Proposed solution
- Add an uri deeplink template in booking_rules.txt as e.g. deeplink_url_template
- The template describes which url parameters are supported
- The template is provided by the DRT system within the GTFS data.
- Journey planning services can then dynamically generate deeplinks for any DRT service.
Additional information
One issue might be that the url parameter names (key words), that might be used in the template, need to be a fixed set. Otherwise the journey planning service would not know how to process the template. Additions are only possible by changing the GTFS specification.
Before I investigate more time here, I'd like to hear some of your opinions regarding this topic. Maybe others have stumbled over this topic already.
Describe the problem
Many journey planning apps integrate DRT services in their planning so that DRT trip options show up in the journey planning results besides fixed route services. Quite often a link is offered based on the booking_url from booking_rules.txt that directs the user to the website of the DRT service. The user could then book the service he is interested in.
To make it more convenient for the user most DRT booking systems offer the usage of url parameters. Then it's possible to pass along basic infos regarding the desired DRT trip like starting point and time. The booking webseite can then already take the user to an offer for his trip request. No need to type in again start point, time etc.
Unfortunately each DRT booking system has defined it's own set of url parameters. To avoid that journey planning apps need to know which set of url parameters each DRT booking system supports, it might be a better solution to include an uri deeplink template in the GTFS data as e.g. deeplink_url_template.
Use cases
Make it possible for journey planning apps to generate deeplinks for DRT trips based on an uri template provided with the GTFS data.
Proposed solution
Additional information
One issue might be that the url parameter names (key words), that might be used in the template, need to be a fixed set. Otherwise the journey planning service would not know how to process the template. Additions are only possible by changing the GTFS specification.
Before I investigate more time here, I'd like to hear some of your opinions regarding this topic. Maybe others have stumbled over this topic already.